LendingTree just logged its biggest year ever, and it did it from right here in Charlotte. The local fintech posted a record $1.12 billion in revenue for 2025, crediting a wave of new AI-driven tools for juicing traffic, conversions and partner sales across its marketplaces. The strong finish to the year, capped by a better-than-expected fourth quarter, marks a sharp rebound as the company leans hard into automation and gets ready to bring employees into a new South End office.
Financials: Record Year And Q4 Strength
The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $319.7 million and full-year revenue of $1.12 billion, up from $900.2 million in 2024. That swing helped turn last year's loss into a profit. Those numbers, along with LendingTree's 2026 outlook, were disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Management Credits AI For Lift
Executives said they have been redirecting product and marketing dollars toward automated consumer tools and AI experiments that speed up design work, ad testing and funnel optimization. "We are embedding advances in AI into both our internal workstreams and customer funnels," President and CEO Scott Peyree said in the company's release, according to PR Newswire.
On the investor call, company leaders pointed to specific payoffs from that strategy. They said AI-powered voice technology in the call center and faster funnel testing have contributed more than $10 million in additional revenue per quarter over the past six quarters, along with roughly a 17% lift in conversions year over year in the fourth quarter. Those figures appear in the call transcript reported by Investing.com.
Charlotte Footprint And Staffing Shifts
LendingTree told local outlets it will open a South End office to welcome the first wave of employees on March 9 as the company continues consolidating operations around the Vantage South End campus. The Charlotte Business Journal reported that LendingTree also eliminated about 24 positions as it shifted more investment toward automated consumer tools.
The move keeps LendingTree firmly planted in South End, where Vantage South End is still a high-amenity, well-leased office campus and a magnet for fintech and professional services firms. That steady campus demand helped make the neighborhood a logical pick for the company's hybrid hub, analysts told CoStar.
Outlook And What To Watch
Looking ahead, management guided 2026 revenue to a range of $1.275 billion to $1.33 billion and said it expects adjusted EBITDA to improve as AI projects scale. At the same time, non-GAAP metrics remain something investors are watching closely. Market coverage highlighted a sharp intraday rally on that outlook, as reported by The Motley Fool, even though earlier after-hours trading reflected concern over an adjusted per-share loss flagged by Investing.com. For Charlotte, the real test will be whether the South End hub actually pulls more workers back on site and whether those AI-fueled efficiencies can keep lifting conversions without a matching surge in marketing spend.
